ride appear without her veil.

Very different from the social position of chaste women was that of
the hetairai. We are not speaking of the lowest class of unfortunates,
worshiping Aphrodite Pandemos, but of those women who, owing to their
beauty and grace of conversation, exerted great influence even over
superior men. We only remind the reader of Aspasia. In the graces of
society the hetairai were naturally superior to respectable women,
owing to their free intercourse with men. For the hetairai did not
shun the light of day, and were not restrained by the law. Only the
house of the married man was closed to them.

Before passing from private to public life, we must cast a glance at
the early education of the child by the mother. We begin with the
earliest days of infancy. After the first bath the new-born child was
put into swaddling-clothes, a custom not permitted by the rougher
habits of Sparta. On the fifth or seventh day the infant had to go
through the ceremony of purification; the midwife, holding him in her
arms, walked several times round the burning altar. A festive meal on
this day was given to the family, the doors being decorated with an
olive crown for a boy, with wool for a girl. On the tenth day after
its birth, when the child was named, another feast took place. This
ceremony implied the acknowledgment, on the part of the father, of the
child's legitimacy. The name of the child was chosen by both parents,
generally after the name of either of the grandparents, sometimes,
also, after the name or attributes of a deity, under whose particular
protection the child was thus placed. A sacrifice, offered chiefly to
the goddess of child-bearing, Here Ilithyia, and a meal, concluded the
ceremony. At the latter, friends and relatives presented the infant
with toys of metal or clay, while the mother received painted vases.
The antique cradle consisted of a flat swing of basket work, such as
appears in a terra-cotta relief in the British Museum, of the infant
Bacchus being carried by a satyr brandishing a thyrsus, and a
torch-bearing bacchante. Another kind of cradle, in the form of a
shoe, is shown containing the infant Hermes, recognizable by his
petasos. It also is made of basket-work. The advantage of this cradle
consists in its having handles, and, therefore, being easily portable.
It also might be suspended on ropes, and rocked without difficulty.
Other cradles, similar to our modern ones, belong to a late